Fluoroscopic or angiographic x-ray diagnostic apparatuses of this kind are commonly used nowadays in the therapy of certain vascular diseases whereby the patient has an angiographic implant such as a stent inserted at the diseased location in the vessel in an intervention. The key to fast and precise positioning of the stent lies in excellent x-ray visibility of items such as catheters and guide wires as well as implants such as stents, it frequently being the case that the visibility of the structures varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. This is attributable on the one hand to the x-ray diagnostic apparatus and on the other to the size of the objects.
To gauge the image quality of x-ray diagnostic apparatuses, various measuring methods using technical phantoms such as DQE for flat-panel detectors (Detective Quantum Efficiency, effective quantum absorption), resolution tests and edge are well known. These methods are described e.g. in the “Handbook of Medical Imaging”, Volume 1, Physics and Psychophysics, Chapter 3, Image Quality Metrics for Digital Systems, 2000. However, they only take account of isolated technical issues and not the clinically relevant behavior of the overall system.